FRANCES (Fannie/Fanny) SOULÉ
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351 After the earthquake in April of 1906 she recreated her studio in Berkeley on Bancroft Way where she briefly shared her space with the “wood carver” Miss Mildred Holden.15 Two of Campbell’s first commissions were to design cover illustrations for The Courier, a weekly magazine in Berkeley, and art work for another journal, Western Tours.16 She was briefly a “staff artist” at the Overland Monthly which later published a very flattering biography of the artist with fine reproductions of her celebrity portraits.17 Of all of Berkeley’s female artists in this period she was by far the most socially dynamic and popular. Campbell was the first to publicize her studio with large conspicuous advertisements.18 She participated in major exhibitions throughout the East Bay, including the Fifth Annual of the Oakland Art Fund at the Starr King Fraternity in 1905.19 Her only portrait miniature to survive the destruction of her San Francisco studio, a “splendid” study of Elsa von Monderscheid, was given a place of honor at Berkeley’s 1906 Studio Building Exhibition.20 In 1906 Campbell contributed to the Inaugural Exhibition of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club and to the California State Fair.21 At the State Fair in 1908 she won separate medals for the best sketch and the best painted miniature on ivory.22 Several of her miniatures attracted favorable attention at the San Francisco Arts & Crafts Association.23 In 1907 her portraits in miniature were selected for display at San Francisco’s Sketch Club and at the opening of the Del Monte Art Gallery.24 That year she also displayed miniatures at the Alameda County Exposition in Oakland’s Idora Park.25 According to Hanna Larsen of the San Francisco Call, the young Berkeley artist was expanding her artistic horizons, no doubt due to the impact of photography on the demand for miniatures:26 Miss Frances Soule Campbell has branched off into illustrative work and has been very successful. She had drawn a head of Joaquin Miller which is an idealized likeness and shows very poetic treatment. The picture was so popular that reproductions of it have been put on the market, and the poet himself is reputed to have been so pleased with it that he bought a whole bunch at once. Miss Campbell has not abandoned her miniature work, however. One of her latest portraits is of Miss Laura Van Wyck, the popular and beautiful girl whose tragic death is a matter of recent memory. Her two contributions to the 1907 Annual of the SFAA were not miniatures, but “extremely well done” portrait drawings in pencil of William Keith and Joaquin Miller.27 Both were sold during the exhibition. Campbell held a joint exhibition in February of 1908 with Mary Fancher Pettis in the parlors of the Oakland Club and displayed her portrait series of famous Californians.28 In conjunction with the convention of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs she served as co-curator and was an exhibitor at the show of California Women Artists at Oakland’s Ebell Club.29 Also in 1908 her portraits appeared in a rare Pacific Grove exhibition alongside the works of Mary DeNeale Morgan, William Adam, Anita Murray and O. V. Lange.30 To the Second Annual of the Berkeley Art Association she contributed portraits of seven famous Americans and one child.31 Her portrait of William Keith was immensely popular and exhibited repeatedly.32 She held displays at smaller venues, such as the Alta Mira Club of San Leandro, where her sketches were sold.33 In 1909 she exhibited at Berkeley’s Twentieth Century Club.34 Private galleries, including Rabjohn & Morcom in Oakland, showed her work.35 She was a sought-after speaker and once lectured on “modern” Russian painters at the prestigious Adelphian Club in Alameda.36 From the very beginning Campbell was involved in the formation of the Berkeley Arts and Crafts Society which eventually became the Studio Club. She was elected that organization’s “registrar” and actively supported the creation of the Berkeley Art Association.37 With K. FRANCES (Fannie/Fanny) SOULÉ CAMPBELL (1860-19??) Birdsall she was a co-founder of The Associated Studios, the successor to was born in September on a plantation in the Black Warrior Valley outside the insolvent Berkeley School of Art. Campbell, Birdsall and other artists of Mobile, Alabama. According to the U.S. Census of 1870 and 1880, she offered courses in painting, drawing, music, languages and vocal resided in Mobile with her Tennessee-born mother, Joanna, and her expression; the public art exhibition and musical program at the opening of Scottish-born father, James, who was employed as a river pilot.1 She its August 1909 term became a major social event.38 Frances was received her art education in New Orleans and at the Pennsylvania responsible for organizing The Associated Studios’ “cultural evenings” Academy of Fine Arts. She moved to San Francisco from Washington D.C. which included drama and music as well as exhibitions.39 Their facilities at in 1895, established a studio-residence at 808 Van Ness Avenue and 2523 Hillegass Avenue also provided her with a second atelier where she eventually an independent atelier at 1114 Post Street.2 Miss Campbell held private receptions and taught advanced courses in miniature soon relocated to 1243 Leavenworth Street and then to 231 Post Street, painting.40 According to the U.S. Census of 1910, this address was also the former loft of Edwin Deakin.3 From the U.S. Census of 1900 we learn the residence for several of her friends who were listed as “boarders.”41 that her mother resided with Frances.4 Her studio became a popular venue What fascinated Berkeleyans and San Franciscans were for local artists. By or before 1904 she moved her residence to the home of Campbell’s commissioned portraits of American celebrities which included her close friend, Sally Daingerfield, at 2630 Bancroft Way in Berkeley and Theodore Roosevelt, Ambrose Bierce, Joaquin Miller, President Taft and joined the Oakland Art Fund.5 She was socially active in San Francisco Mary Baker Eddy. Eddy was especially impressed with the original pencil and in 1905 served as a “maid of honor” at the San Francisco convention of drawing, which she received from the artist, and permitted its display at the the Daughters of the Confederacy.6 Idora Park Arts and Crafts Exhibition in the fall of 1908.42 Of this exhibit In 1897 she exhibited two works, each entitled Ideal Head, at Lucy Jerome, art critic for the San Francisco Call, observed: “Miss the Mechanics’ Institute Fair.7 Campbell contributed her portrait miniatures Campbell seems to have seized the very soul of her subject and retained it to the San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) from 1900 to 1907 8 and to in her studies.”43 She was so highly regarded that when she traveled to the California Society of Artists in 1902.9 In December of 1903 she and Carmel or the Russian River on “sketching vacations,” it was reported in Hallie Irwin held a joint display of miniatures at the Annual Exhibition of the local newspapers as an item of great interest.44 Likewise, there was a Guild of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel.10 Campbell collective sense of relief in the East Bay press when it was announced that contributed “a case of miniatures” in May of 1905 to the Wallace Johnson her trip to Europe had been “deferred.”45 One of the highlights of her exhibition in Carmel where she often visited.11 She exhibited in December career was the solo exhibition of her portraits in January of 1910 at San her “small portraits” at the Annual of the Guild of Arts and Crafts in the St. Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel where her rendering of Cardinal Newman was Francis Hotel.12 The following spring the Guild sent a selection of her especially praised by critics.46 Due to her popularity she was elected in miniatures to Los Angeles for display.13 At this time she also exhibited at 1909 and 1910 the Alameda County District Chairman of the Art Daingerfield’s San Francisco studio.14 Department of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.47 Even her 352 “artistically arranged” studio was the subject of a special feature in the exhibition of paintings and was regarded in the press as one of the region’s Sunday Oakland Tribune.48 most important miniature painters.7 That summer Rose and her sister With the decline in the number of paying students, Campbell relocated their studio and residence to 659 Clay Street in San Francisco.8 and the other artist-teachers at The Associated Studios reluctantly closed In February of 1907 an article in a local Berkeley newspaper noted that that facility in late May of 1910.49 Her last known exhibition in the East Bay “Miss Rose Campbell,” a “talented” painter of miniatures on ivory, was a was in February of that year at the Alameda District Federated San Franciscan who migrated to Berkeley immediately after the earthquake Convention.50 The rapid deterioration of Berkeley’s art colony and the of 1906.9 The paper also mentioned the impending opening of her paucity of private students decided her on a “stay in the East . of an Berkeley studio. The Directory gave her Berkeley address as 2486 indefinite length.” In New York she hoped to find publishers willing to Shattuck Avenue; she contributed to the First Annual Exhibition of the purchase her work.51 Apparently, she never returned to Berkeley.